“That man Grant has been of more comfort to me than any other man in my army,” Lincoln pledged. “Grant is my man, and I am his the rest of the war.” The cigar-puffing, alcoholic, tongue-tied, taciturn, short, and dowdy Grant, who stood in sharp contrast to the tobacco-abstaining, teetotaling, articulate, eloquent, loquacious, towering, and lanky Lincoln, summed up his commander in chief as “a great man, a very great man. The more I saw of him, the more this impressed me. He was incontestably the greatest man I ever knew.”* With their unwavering mutual respect, loyalty, and admiration, the
...more
